Feb.
21, 2005
WASHINGTON - Happy President's Day!
The whole staff at
CongressDaily is celebrating, because a) we get today
off, and b) Congress is in recess for a whole week! This means
no AM edition for
lack of Congress-related news. This also means my job is essentially cut in
half! So while the other
interns in my program are probably following uninteresting stories (like a
piece on earwax according to my friend at
the Wall Street Journal), I
get to relax some.
Still, I am preparing to do some
pieces that hopefully will get me
bylines. Bylines! That golden object that all journalists
crave,
especially ones that need them for resumés. I've got
high hopes for
these projects.
The first is a graph showing the trend of
blacks in
Congress. It's an interesting story. The number of African-Americans
in Congress has steadily risen since
Reconstruction, and the number of African-American House
members has
come closer to proportionally representing African-Americans. However,
we noticed an odd trend; the
number
has not increased in the last ten years.
The last time African-Americans had a net gain of seats in
Congress
was
1994, the
year of the Republican Revolution. Since then it's stayed
constant at
40 black congressmen. Could there be a relationship?
Well, that's
what my piece will explore.
My second piece is a little more
cut-and-dry. Another intern and I are compiling
data on what outgoing congressmen from the last Congress
are doing now, and that's increasingly
becoming
a pain. We're going to compile our research later this
week and
target those few reclusive senators and congressmen who
won't return
our calls. No one said the journalistic profession lacked
for perserverance, or
tenacity.
That's all for now. Oh, except I used my press credentials
to get
into the Presidential Banquet at the Conservative Political
Action
Conference. I saw Dick Cheney speak. Would you believe
he's really
short in person?
next entry>>
|
