Bee Partners With CT Mirror For Reporting On State Policies And Politics

By John Voket

The Newtown Bee is one of the charter partners in a new independent journalism project that recently began publishing web-based reports on state political happenings and related news coming out of the capital, the legislature, and state agencies. Dubbed “The Connecticut News Project,” the initiative invited print and online news outlets to carry reports generated for the project’s website, CTMirror.org.

As a result of the partnership, The Bee will be able to tap CT Mirror resources to bring Newtown readers select reports about state political and policy issues from the news agency’s staff.

According to Newtown Bee Editor Curtiss Clark, the partnership is a good fit, complementing The Bee’s comprehensive local reporting.

“The Bee is happy to have The Connecticut News Project and CT Mirror as a partner in our effort to bring timely and useful information to our readers about the politics and policies emanating from Hartford that affect our lives every day,” Mr Clark said of the partnership. “The Connecticut News Project is a resource for the kind of experienced, in-depth reporting which is becoming increasingly scarce, not only in Hartford, but across the country. We want, quite literally, to spread the word about this great new source of reliable and insightful information about our state government.”

James A. Cutie, chief operating officer of The Connecticut News Project said he was very happy with his news organization’s partnership with The Bee.

“Our goal is to make content available to readers across the state, providing niche reporting on our government, politics, and public policy,” Mr Cutie said. “What happens in Hartford potentially affects everybody in Newtown, and in every community in Connecticut. And we are delighted to count The Newtown Bee as one of our first charter partners.”

Mr Cutie said as the project expands and acquires additional journalistic talent, he hopes to see CTMirror.org expand to cover issues like public health, environment, social services, and business trends that influence, or are influenced by actions that occur at the capital.

“We’re looking at expanding our ability to provide even more objective content, and providing it in new ways that will appeal to the broadest range of information consumers, including publishing our reports in other languages,” he said.

Acknowledging there are still well over a million daily and weekly print newspaper readers and subscribers in Connecticut, Mr Cutie admitted that for the initiative to enjoy the greatest potential for success, it must showcase content on the web as well as in the pages of the state’s local newspapers.

“Our flagship is the website [CTMirror.org],” he said. “But we need the million or more circulating newspapers in Connecticut every week to provide a credible, viable medium for us to get into every home, and hopefully enhance the personal readership experience each person enjoys with their hometown print newspaper of choice.”

As The Connecticut News Project expands to cover new areas of interest, the project will also be soliciting media talents, developing internships, fellowships, and ways to involve college and university journalism and writing programs, Mr Cutie said.

“We won’t be all things to all people,” he said. “We won’t be covering entertainment news or social activities.”

Each day, the CTMirror.org editors also highlight reports appearing in other state print publications, and Mr Cutie sees this aspect expanding to include reciprocal reporting on the site from newspaper partners like The Bee.