My thoughts about the shells

This was definitely the craziest week of the semester so far for me, so I may be speaking out of exhaustion, but I do think we should collapse at least one shell. Not because I don't think we could do it, but because I am not sure if three web shells could be sustained in the long run.

My greatest fear for this project was that we put a bunch of work into it, and come May, no one takes up the mantle and it just dies. I think only one or two shells could more easily sustained, and maybe could be someone's regular beat in the future.

I think there are considerations about how much the project takes us off of our regular beat. I'm kind of in a special position because the legislature goes on break after next week, so I was planning on trying to do a lot of my stuff then. But I know it's difficult for those working on a beat that is continuous.

Progress Report-

In my story this week about Missouri's undecided superdelegates, I interviewed a U.S. Congressman from STL (Lacy Clay) who said that Obama would pick up 50 undecided superdelegates at the same time "later this week". It was a statement that, if true, would have been close to national news, and the story on our web site was picked up by a lot of different political web sites on Wednesday night (Politico, Daily Kos, Politics 1). I was even called by a Fox News reporter on Thursday morning to ask if the story was true. I spent most of Thursday chasing that story and found the Obama Campaign and Clay's office to be rather tight-lipped about it, leaving me. It was crazy to chase a story that important though, and I enjoyed it a lot. I also am happy about my other story about a package of crime bills heard by the Senate on Monday. All in all, a good but busy week. for me.