As Newsrooms Cut Back, Who Covers the Statehouse?
By Belinda Luscombe Thursday, May. 07, 2009
There are usually 11 reporters who make their home offices in the fourth-floor newsroom of the slightly Gothic marble and granite Connecticut State Capitol building in Hartford. Seven of them work for newspapers, two for radio, one for the AP and one of them, Christine Stuart, is the Connecticut News Junkie.
On any given day at CTnewsjunkie.com, there are stories about Connecticut's budget woes, health care issues and Senator Chris Dodd's attempts to reform the credit card industry. Most of the stories are written by Stuart. All the photos are taken by Stuart. And Stuart or her husband, who works as a layout editor at a local paper, handle most of the ads, which are for local unions or the Connecticut Dairy Farmers Association. So far, her best month garnered her site 67,000 page views. But Stuart, 31, who has to have a part-time job to make ends meet, says she is treated, more or less, as an equal by the other reporters in the office. "One of them told me, 'You have to make it, because you're the future.'"
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