Just when you thought Pennsylvania politics couldn't get any more corrupt, the Inquirer has uncovered a $1.7 million taxpayer-funded effort by House Democrats to spam e-mail users around PA. All for partisan purposes, of course.
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This evening I rolled out a new design for Keystone Politics. I never seem to be satisfied with the design, but this represents an improvement over the past color scheme and a professionalized look for the site. I'll roll out specific new features over the next few days. Here are a few notes on key areas where I'm either testing a new feature or looking for ideas.
- Subscriptions: For the past few years, I've focused on RSS subscriptions. With this design, I'm testing whether we'll see a better response rate from a daily headlines e-mail. Knowing the political audience, I think it will be a hit.
- Discussions: One of the biggest challenges on Keystone Politics is convincing our readers to participate in discussions on the site. I don't think we made a big improvement in this area, but I'm going to be actively seeking out ideas.
- Revenue Opportunities: I finally caved and installed a leaderboard advertisement banner at the top of the page. I've resisted it for four years, but increased server costs mean that we've got to bring in more money.
- Cleaner Sidebar: We fit a lot of information into our sidebars; I think this look is cleaner than the last one.
...and other interested parties.
As a site devoted to Pennsylvania politics, should we have covered the Alycia Lane mini-scandal? Without discussing it, Rob and I both opted out of writing about it, but I wonder if we made the right decision.
Feel free to e-mail or comment.
Over the next month, I'm transitioning back to managing Keystone Politics and writing about politics. I'm very excited about the prospect of writing about politics again; it's one of the things I've missed the most since finishing grad school and moving to Washington. Here's a post I wrote about taking out the trash:
One big question I have this week is whether we’ll see any disposal of the proverbial “trash” – news that no one wanted to release last week or next because it is embarrassing to them. In this business, one oft-used tool is to “throw out the trash” at a time when reporters and the public are paying the least attention. That generally happens in one of two ways. First, when the media and the public are too busy paying attention to something far more important than your garbage. Or, when they’re too busy worrying about themselves…a weekend or better yet, a holiday.
