ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses three beats that are central to a newspaper’s role in promoting accountability in government: city hall, the statehouse and local courts. Many routine governmental actions are boring, and there’s little to be done about that. But it’s also the case that controversy, and wrongdoing, can often be found beneath, or behind, routine and well-established practices. This chapter begins with an overview of the history and current state of government reporting, sometimes called public affairs reporting. It then examines the ways that major stories have been developed in this area. The focus is on local government, but the same principles can be seen at work on the national level. Because government actions nearly always generate records, a key area of emphasis is documents. But personal observation and talking with officials and citizens also come into play.
