Sidebar: How I survived my first election night in the state capital

Community News Service
Broadcast students
join legislative coverage

By Christine Tutty
J-School Web reporter

photo by Luke George

Reporter Tim Reilly practices his radio script

The J-School’s Community News Service class has some new additions this semester from the broadcast world. The class, now in its 11th year at the University of Montana, was not open to broadcast students until this semester.

Students in the class write stories about elections — including candidate profiles and ballot issues — for weekly newspapers and radio stations in Montana.

“There’s a good market for election and legislative coverage among small newspapers and radio stations – a market no one else is going to fill – so why not give students a chance to fill it?” said professor Dennis Swibold, who teaches the class. “Besides, these are important events for Montana’s democracy. Every student ought to have a chance to learn how to cover them.”

The print journalism students wrote two articles each before the Nov. 2 election; the first article profiled a statewide race while the second analyzed one of the ballot issues that went before voters this month. The articles went to more than two dozen papers around the state.

“I get lots of comments from weekly editors around the state who are grateful for the coverage,” Swibold said. “They simply don’t have the time or the staff to offer their readers coverage of important statewide issues, but they do care.”

Response from editors around the state has been positive.

 “I thought the articles were generally well done and thorough,” said Cathy Siegner, editor of Queen City News in Helena. “We didn't have time to do all those stories ourselves and they were handy for our issues before the election.”

Broadcast students covered the ballot issues for radio stations. The stories aired across the state for the Northern News Network and locally on KBGA, the university’s college radio station.

“The university students have just been doing a fabulous job with the stories,” KBGA News Director Amy Nile said. “I appreciate the news service because KBGA reporters don’t have time to cover all the issues that really do matter.”

Students also had the chance to cover the election live. Broadcast students in the class created television packages and were producing live in Bozeman and Helena on Election Day. (See sidebar on covering the governor's race on Election Night.)

With the election over, print students will write stories about the upcoming legislative session.

Next semester, one print student and the three broadcast students will cover the 2005 legislative session in Helena. The students will move to Helena for the semester.

photo by Luke George

Reporter Beth Saboe works on her radio story

Broadcast students Tim Reilly and Beth Saboe will cover the entire legislative session, which runs from Jan. 3 through April 23. Christine Tutty will assist the duo with the first three weeks of newscasts. They will be responsible for one radio newscast a day during the session. The newscasts will air on the Northern News Network, which consists of 34 radio stations around Montana.

“I’m really excited for the opportunity to be in Helena and get to see our state government in action,” Saboe said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how everything unfolds and watch the political power players in action.”

Print student Kristen Inbody also will cover the legislature, writing one in-depth story a week and some feature articles when time allows. The articles will be published in more than 30 papers around the state. Inbody will also be filing stories for the Kaimin, UM’s college newspaper.

The Community News Service class was started in 1992. Since then, at least one print reporter has covered the biennial legislative session in Helena, but this will be the first year that student broadcast reporters will cover the session.

The class is offered every fall semester, but during non-election years, the class functions as more of an independent study for graduate students.

In election years, the fall semester class covers the ballot issues and candidates, and in the spring semesters, students travel to Helena to cover the legislative sessions.

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