WisconsinEye President & CEO Chris Long was a guest on WIBA 1310's Madison Tonight with Brian Schimming.

The continued downsizing of traditional media, especially newspapers, is being felt everywhere, but one place in particular: shrinking coverage of America's statehouses.

Madison isn't immune from what American Journalism Review calls "a staggering loss of reporting firepower at America's state capitols" with the loss of at least three correspondents in recent years writing either for newspapers or newspaper chains. (According to AJR: the Capital Times dropped to one reporter; Lee Newspapers eliminated a bureau shared by papers in Racine, Chippewa Falls and La Crosse; and Gannett's papers in Appleton and Green Bay now share a correspondent.)

One way to keep informed about Wisconsin government, new in the last few years, is the WisconsinEye Network. WisconsinEye is a private, nonprofit public affairs broadcaster that focuses on state affairs. The network is nonpartisan and provides its audience with coverage of committee hearings, legislative floor proceedings, and other special events and activities taking place at our state capitol in Madison.

There are so many critical issues that we in the state Legislature will face in the 2009-10 session. Jobs and the economy, health care, schools, and transportation-these issues are central to the health of Wisconsin and will be addressed at the state level. Staying informed and getting involved is more important than ever before, and WisconsinEye is a great way to keep tabs on the proceedings.

As program manager, I select the events that WisconsinEye covers. When the Legislature is in session or when the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments, that's what WisEye covers. In addition to the floor sessions of the Legislature, we cover every committee at least once in every biennium. When the Legislature and the Supreme Court are not in session, I research the media, Web sites and talk to people to find out what's going on throughout the state.

Judges, attorneys, and researchers in Wisconsin are often frustrated by the limited range of resources available to discern the legislative intent behind a state statute. There are few extrinsic sources of legislative history, mainly the drafting notes and lists of accepted and rejected amendments. A guide from the Legislative Reference Bureau summarizes the problem:

“Many of the resources commonly associated with legislative intent research with respect to the United States Congress have no counterpart in the Wisconsin Legislature. There is no verbatim record of floor debates. ... There is no transcript of committee proceedings. Without those resources, documentation of legislative intent must rely on other resources which are not necessarily relevant to intent, are often not useful, and usually must be interpreted in order to be helpful to the researcher at all.”

This dearth of sources is particularly problematic because Wisconsin courts traditionally place great weight on extrinsic sources of legislative intent when interpreting an ambiguous passage from a statute, though this reliance has receded recently. However, the lack of sources may start to change with the advent of WisconsinEye.

A new state Legislature is coming to Madison in January, and Wisconsin newspapers now have access to an important new resource to help keep their readers informed about the actions of their elected representatives in the Capitol.

WisconsinEye, the new statewide public affairs network, has been providing gavel-to-gavel, nonpartisan, unfiltered coverage of state government and public policy debate on cable and the Internet since May 2007, “expanding the gallery” in the Capitol to all state residents through both television and the Web....

We have all heard that the Internet is playing a bigger role in campaigns. I just did not realize how close to home it was coming. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that WisconsinEye (www.wisconsineye.org) had videotaped and posted interviews with the two top fundraising candidates in the 47th Assembly District Republican Primary — a race that is right in our backyard....

Listen as Chris Long discusses the network's mission, broad range of public affairs programming, and Campaign 2008 coverage.

08.21.08 | WCLO 1230 Janesville's Stan Milam Show: State Government Coverage (26 Minutes)
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08.20.08 | WIBA 1310's Madison Tonight with Brian Schimming (38 Minutes)
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WisconsinEye is a great resource for a great state. Unfortunately, most of the people in the state don't know it. WisconsinEye is the statewide public affairs network that had been in the works for years before finally launching in May 2007....