William March

William March, chief political reporter for the Tampa Tribune took us though the process to investigating public officials and documents. He gave us an array of websites to use to find profiles on certain people, and different reports to obtain information.

He spoke a lot about campaign contributions which I found very interesting. There is a limit on the amount of money a company can contribute to a certain candidate, but there are ways that sneaky and surreptitious company heads can get around that. The example Mr. March gave us was that the big boss might give a hundred employees a $1000 raise, but then they would turn around and say…well I am expecting to see a thousand dollar contribution to so and so’s campaign. So in reality the money is coming from the same place. We learned that in this case the employeers were not peanilized which I think is a good thing. With the economy the way it is today, people are desperate to hold onto their jobs. So if their boss says hey do this, it is ok, they are going to do it to prevent losing the position they hold.

I was also intrigued when Mr. March asked how many people think there should be a limit placed on the amount of money one can contribute to a single candidate. Most of the class thought there should but one guy said otherwise, and I really liked his argument.

He said that with the ease of access for public records and campaign contributions, it is very easy to spot something unusual. As Journalism students we should pounce on that, It would be pretty easy to determine which companies are getting some sort of kickback from the candidate or the party.

I really enjoyed listening to William March speak about political reporting because it is an area that I do not know a lot about. It was also very cool that the next day when I was reading the Tampa Tribune, I read a few of his articles about the 2008 presidential race.