Maureen Alley's Blog

Madison, Wis.

So, I reside in Madison, Wis. Yes, the Madison, Wis. that is currently imploding. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you know shit has hit the fan in Wisconsin’s capitol.

The overview: Governor Scott Walker released his proposed budget last Friday, Feb. 11, 2011. In the budget he proposes that public employees pay 5.8% for their pensions and 12% for health insurance. In addition, Walker wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees. In the last week, Madison schools have been closed three days because so many teachers called in sick. In addition schools around the state closed too. On Thursday, the Wisconsin Education Association called all members to picket at the Capitol on Friday. Therefore increasing the school closures on Friday compared to earlier in the week.

Falling on my journalism background, I’m going to do my best to avoid putting my politics here. Although if you follow me on Twitter, you might have an idea of where I stand. However, this post is less about my politics and more about the awesome reporting that is being done by WISC-TV.

WISC has a handful of young, passionate and hungry reporters. And it shows. I follow Jessica Arp, Andy Choi, Marc Lovicott and David Douglas on Twitter. All of these reporters are doing an amazing job providing real-time information on what’s happening at the Capitol. They are constantly posting updates, video, pictures and answering questions. They have taken reporting to a completely new level. If you didn’t believe in Twitter’s use in reporting/journalism, take a look at their Twitter accounts. You’ll change your mind quickly.

And on top of it, they are utilizing Facebook. I am a fan of WISC-3/Channel 3000 on Facebook so I see all the updates. And man are there updates. Despite recent stats that came out claiming most people will un-fan/un-friend due to too much posting, that has not happened with WISC. They are following their reporters in the field (named above) and posting video/news/pics on Facebook.

This event that’s happening in Madison right now is huge. No. It’s massive. No matter your perspective. It’s all over the national news: The New York Times, Time magazine, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc. Even Obama is getting involved with a recent statement.

As a journalist myself and someone who appreciates good reporting, I think this whole WISC thing is awesome on two levels. First, that WISC sees the value in these young journalists and gives them the freedom/respect to report. You don’t see the same from its competition. And you don’t often see that perspective from many companies in general. Two, it’s awesome because these young reporters are now getting the opportunity to be involved in a national historic event.

Jessica Arp, Andy Choi, Marc Lovicott and David Douglas deserve national and local recognition for their reporting. And I hope they get it.

Here is one example of a video of the Capitol protest posted by Jessica:

Last fall/winter, I was working three jobs and freelancing with various publications. I had way too much on my plate, and a squirrel took up space in place of my brain. But so far, 2011 is off to a fabulous start. I’ve been working full time as editor of RD+B magazine since September but I feel like I’m just now getting my footing.

I now have the time to completely focus on the magazine, website, social media, content, news, and so on. And it feels great. I absolutely love my job. Did you hear that?! I. Love. My. Job. After a few bad experiences in the last few years, I started to believe that jobs were not meant to be loved – rather things you did because you had to pay the bills. Well, goodbye wrong point-of-view.

I traveled to Orlando in January for one of the biggest tradeshows in my industry. It felt great to walk the show floor, see old colleagues, check out new products, and tweet about them. I genuinely was excited. I even had the opportunity to have some great conversations of how B2B companies should be using the Web. In one conversation, I was asked if I thought every editor should be tweeting. And my response? “Absolutely!” This spurred a whole conversation about Web, original news content, social media and my thoughts on the importance of trade publications. It was fun and exciting to be apart of that conversation.

Now, this week I’m in production with our next issue and I’m again energized. We’ve shortened our articles, added sidebars, popouts with tidbits of information and a few other treatments. All these things allow us to provide more content to our audience – more vital information to them. It also allows for more entry points into each article and more layers to each article. People multitask more than ever so providing all these bits of information will hopefully make our editorial much more valuable and informative to them.

The issue looks so good and I cannot wait to get it into the hands of our audience. And you know what that means? I. Love. My. Job. Of course there are days when I’m overwhelmed and stressed because there is so much going on. I’m either traveling to another state for a seminar, or going down to the Chicago office for a meeting. But no matter where I’m at, I love the people, industry and content. To me, that’s pretty freaking cool.