Behind the Headlines

Many of us who eat, sleep and drink the news live for this time of year. With an election two weeks away, the newsroom takes on an all-hands-on-deck mentality, and almost every reporter and editor in the news department gets involved in covering or tracking the most interesting election races. For those of us who see politics and government coverage as one of the most important contributions newspapers make to democracy, late October in an election year is sort of like late March for a college basketball fan.

This year, in addition to daily coverage of key campaign developments, the Herald-Leader is offering readers and prospective voters lots of additional options to follow the fall "silly season." On Sunday, we’ll publish a special 10-page section that will be heavy on candidates’ biographical information and comparisons of where they stand on the issues. The section will cover everything from Congressional races to state legislative contests to the most competitive local contests, including Lexington’s mayoral race. Also included will be the local ballots from most of the counties in the Herald-Leader’s coverage area, and a guide on how to use those new electronic voting machines that will be in most polling places. Information in the section also will appear on Kentucky.com starting Sunday.

Meanwhile, we’ve added an interactive election map to Kentucky.com so voters can find the key Congressional, state House and state Senate races in their county. Our Election 2006 page is a great resource for tracking all the stories that have appeared in the Herald-Leader and on Kentucky.com about specific races. Did you miss the full profiles we ran in May on the candidates for Lexington mayor, or the question-and-answer sessions with the candidates that ran earlier this week? They’re archived on the election page. What has political Ryan Alessi been writing about lately? It’s on the election page. What has the Herald-Leader written about county judge-executive races in areas around Lexington, or about key judicial contests? All of that — and more — is there, too.

And finally, the newest addition to our election coverage is Pol Watchers, the Herald-Leader’s political blog, which started up a few weeks ago with this election season in mind. On the blog, the Herald-Leader’s team of political writers regularly updates campaign developments and breaking news from the campaign trail. This blog is a bit of an experiment for us. Kentucky.com has several other blogs that are produced primarily by one person, usually a beat writer blogging about the subject he or she covers. Pol Watchers is truly a team blog, with multiple reporters all contributing items throughout the day. News may be posted to the blog from the Herald-Leader’s Frankfort team (Jack Brammer, Ryan Alessi, John Stamper), or Andy Mead covering the water referendum in Lexington, or Michelle Ku and Sarah Vos on the mayor’s race, Jim Warren on the Fayette council-at-large contest, or courts reporter Brandon Ortiz on the high-profile Supreme Court race between John Roach and Mary Noble.

If you love politics like many of us do, the Herald-Leader, Kentucky.com and Pol Watchers all provide a great source of updated information, and a variety of ways to feed the late October madness.

Peter Baniak
metro editor