Beat Setup Guide

Beat Setup Guide

What This Skill Does

Generates a structured setup guide for a journalist taking over or launching a new beat — covering the source map, document inventory, recurring calendar, key contacts, institutional landscape, story seeds, and a 30-day ramp-up plan.

When To Use This Skill

• You are taking over a beat from a departing reporter and received no handover notes
• You are launching a new beat that your newsroom has never staffed before
• You are moving from one publication to another and need to rebuild your source network from scratch in a new geography or subject area
• An editor has asked you to scope a beat before the newsroom commits to staffing it
• You are a freelancer developing a specialty area and need a systematic approach to building coverage infrastructure

What You Need To Provide

Required: The beat description (subject area and scope); geographic scope (city, region, state, national); publication type and audience (daily newspaper, alt-weekly, trade publication, digital-first, magazine); any known major institutions, agencies, or organizations the beat covers Optional: How many institutions or jurisdictions fall within the beat; whether a predecessor held the beat and what (if anything) was handed over; your existing familiarity with the subject area; known upcoming events or deadlines in the first 90 days; any specific editorial priorities your editor has flagged; the size of the newsroom (affects how much you can delegate)

How the Assistant Approaches This

1. Maps the institutional landscape first: who holds power, who holds information, and where the two overlap. Identifies the formal decision-making structure (elected officials, boards, appointed administrators) and the informal power structure (lobbyists, major donors, union leaders, community organizers, longtime staff who outlast their bosses). For each institution on the beat, traces the governance chain — who appoints whom, who controls the budget, who sets the agenda — and notes where formal authority diverges from actual influence.

2. Builds a tiered source map from that landscape — daily contacts (the people you will call every week as a matter of routine), weekly check-ins (sources you touch base with regularly but not constantly), and occasional sources (experts, advocates, or officials you reach when a specific story requires them). Each tier includes the role, why they matter, and a suggested approach strategy drawn from the Source Approach Reference below.

3. Creates a document inventory: the public records, reports, budgets, audits, meeting minutes, filings, and datasets a beat reporter should collect in the first month and monitor on a recurring basis. Specifies where to find each document and how frequently it is updated. Prioritizes documents by what they unlock — some records open doors to other records.

4. Builds a calendar of recurring events: board meetings, budget cycles, election dates, report release schedules, legislative sessions, conference dates, and seasonal patterns that generate news on this beat. Notes which events are predictable story generators and which require advance preparation to cover well.

5. Identifies key contacts by role — not by name, since names change — with a note on what each role controls and how to approach the person in that role for the first time. Groups contacts by institution and marks which roles overlap in influence across institutions.

6. Generates 5–10 starter story ideas seeded from the beat structure itself: stories that arise naturally from the documents, power dynamics, and information gaps identified in the guide. Each seed includes a clear question the story would answer and a specific document or source to start with.

7. Produces a 30-day ramp-up plan organized by week, with specific daily or multi-day tasks that build on each other — reading before calling, calling before writing, writing before pitching. The plan accounts for the publication type and newsroom size: a solo reporter at a daily paper has a different first month than a reporter at a weekly magazine with a research staff.

Source Approach Strategy Reference

Every source in the guide includes an approach strategy. Those strategies draw from the patterns below — tailored to the specific role, institution, and beat dynamics.

Government and institutional officials (superintendents, agency heads, elected officials, university presidents)

• Request a background meeting, not an interview. Phrase it as orientation: "I've just started covering this beat and I want to understand the institution before I write about it." This lowers the official's guard and produces better information than an adversarial first meeting.
• Read the official's last public speech, annual report, or budget presentation before the meeting. Reference something specific. Officials respond to reporters who have done the reading.
• Do not promise favorable coverage. Do not ask for it. The goal of the first meeting is to establish that you are serious, informed, and fair.
• Time the first meeting within days of starting the beat. Waiting signals either disinterest or that you are building a story behind their back. Neither serves the relationship.
• Bring no notebook to the first meeting unless the official is comfortable with it. Ask at the start: "Do you mind if I take notes?" If they hesitate, put the notebook away. You will remember the important things.

Communications directors and public information officers

• This is a service relationship, not a source relationship. The PIO exists to manage your access. Treat them with professional courtesy and they will return your calls faster. Treat them as an obstacle and they will route you to voicemail.
• Introduce yourself in person when possible — a face makes you a person, not a byline. Ask for the distribution list for public notices, board packets, and press releases.
• Understand the PIO's constraints: they answer to their boss, not to you. When the PIO says "I need to check on that," they are usually telling the truth. Give them reasonable deadlines and follow up when those deadlines pass.
• Never go around the PIO to their boss without informing them first — unless the story requires it. If you go around them, expect the relationship to cool.

Union leaders and labor representatives

• Union leaders are political operators. They have an agenda, they have grievances, and they will try to use you as a channel. This is fine — every source has motives. Your job is to understand the motive and weigh the information accordingly.
• Meet off-campus or off-site. Union leaders who are seen meeting with reporters face internal pressure from both their membership and management.
• Lead with working conditions, not with management's framing of the issues. If you ask "What do you think of the superintendent's plan?" you get the union's press release. If you ask "What are your members dealing with right now?" you get stories.
• Union leaders know more than they tell you on first contact. Build the relationship over months. The best information comes after they trust your judgment and your track record.

Frontline workers (teachers, nurses, social workers, patrol officers, adjunct faculty)

• These sources take the most time to develop and produce the most valuable information. They see what administrators do not. They have no PR filter.
• Approach through the union rep, through a trusted intermediary (another reporter, a community member), or by showing up at a public event where they are present. Cold calls to a school teacher's desk rarely work.
• Protect these sources aggressively. A teacher who talks to a reporter about staffing problems may face retaliation from a principal. Never quote a frontline worker without discussing what they are comfortable with on the record.
• The first conversation is not for quotes. It is for orientation. Ask what their day looks like. Ask what has changed in the last year. Ask what nobody from outside the building understands about their work.

Community members and activists

• Show up before you call. Attend the board meeting, the town hall, the community forum. The parent who speaks during public comment does not know you yet. If you introduce yourself after a meeting where you were visibly present, you have already demonstrated interest.
• Do not use the phrase "I want to get your perspective." It signals that you are collecting quotes for a story you have already framed. Instead: "I'm trying to understand what's happening here. Can you help me?"
• Community sources test you. They will tell you something and wait to see how you use it. If you handle the first story fairly, the second conversation will be more open.
• Respect the power imbalance. A community activist's time is not compensated. A government official gets paid to talk to you. Adjust your expectations and your gratitude accordingly.

Researchers, academics, and policy analysts

• Read their work before you call. This is the single most effective approach strategy for any academic source. A cold call from a reporter who has read their paper gets a callback. A cold call from a reporter who says "I'm doing a story about X, can you comment?" gets ignored.
• Ask about their findings, not about "the issue." Researchers respond to specificity. "Your study found X — I'm curious about the methodology behind that finding" produces a better conversation than "What do you think about Y?"
• Researchers have different incentives than officials or activists. Many want their work to reach a broader audience and will spend time explaining it if they believe you will get the science right. The risk is oversimplification — ask them to flag where you are in danger of getting it wrong.
• University researchers may need to route press inquiries through their institution's communications office. Ask upfront. Some will talk to you directly; some will not.

Attorneys and legal professionals

• Attorneys in private practice may talk if the subject is not about an active client. Attorneys in government practice (prosecutors, public defenders, city attorneys) are usually routed through their agency's PIO.
• Former government attorneys — retired prosecutors, former agency counsel — are among the most valuable sources on any beat. They understand the system and are no longer constrained by it. Find them through the state bar directory or LinkedIn; many are now in private practice.
• Frame your question as a system question, not a case question. "How does the procurement process work?" gets an answer. "Did this contract violate procurement rules?" gets "no comment" until you have earned the relationship.
• Qui tam (whistleblower) attorneys maintain networks of former employees and insiders. In certain beats — healthcare, government contracting, financial regulation — these attorneys are the most efficient path to frontline sources.

Elected officials and board members

• Elected officials operate on two timelines: the policy calendar and the election calendar. What they tell you depends on where they are in both cycles. An official facing re-election in six months says different things than one with three years left in their term.
• Board members (school boards, planning commissions, housing authority boards) are often part-time volunteers with day jobs. Reach them by phone or email outside of meetings. Their availability is limited and their patience for long conversations is shorter than a full-time official's.
• Split votes on any board are story leads. When a board votes 4–3 on something, call the dissenting members and ask why they voted no. The minority opinion is often more candid than the majority.
• Approach the newest board member within your first two weeks. First-term officials are still learning the institution and are often more willing to share observations than longtime members who have developed institutional loyalty.

Data and records custodians (clerks, FOIA officers, institutional research staff)

• These are not sources in the traditional sense — they do not give you opinions or insider information. They give you documents, data, and institutional knowledge about how the institution's records are organized. That knowledge is worth its own relationship.
• Introduce yourself early and learn the records system. Ask: "What records do you maintain? How are they organized? What is the fastest way to get routine requests fulfilled?" A FOIA officer who knows you by name processes your requests faster than a FOIA officer who does not.
• When a records request is denied or delayed, ask for the specific statutory exemption being cited. Do not argue the exemption on the phone — respond in writing with a polite but specific appeal citing the applicable public records statute. Records custodians often deny requests because they were told to, not because they believe the exemption applies.
• Institutional research staff at colleges and universities are data custodians who also understand what the data means. They prepare the enrollment reports, the accreditation data, and the institutional dashboards. They rarely get press calls and often welcome the chance to explain what the numbers show.

Beat Adaptation Notes

The seven output sections (Institutional Landscape, Source Map, Document Inventory, Calendar, Key Contacts, Story Seeds, 30-Day Plan) adapt to the specific beat. Below are notes on how the structure shifts for common beat types — not full guides, but signposts for what changes.

City government / municipal beat

• Institutional landscape centers on the city council, mayor's office, and city manager (if applicable). The budget is the spine of the beat. Zoning, land use, and development decisions generate the most reader-facing stories. The informal power structure includes developers, law firms with city contracts, and neighborhood associations. Pay attention to who donates to council campaigns and who appears before the planning commission — the overlap reveals where private money shapes public decisions.
• Source map: city clerk, council aides (often more accessible than council members and closer to the policy details), department heads (public works, planning, police chief, fire chief), city auditor or inspector general, neighborhood association leaders, local government attorneys in private practice (former city attorneys are valuable background sources).
• Key documents: city budget, council agendas and minutes, zoning applications and variances, city audit reports, labor contracts for public employee unions, lobbying disclosures, campaign finance reports for council members, capital improvement plans.
• Calendar: council meetings (typically weekly or biweekly), budget hearings (spring), election cycles, planning commission meetings, zoning board of appeals meetings, quarterly financial reports.
• Story starter: compare the capital improvement plan from three years ago to what was actually built. The gap is a story about priorities, cost overruns, and broken promises.

Criminal justice beat

• Institutional landscape spans law enforcement, prosecution, courts, defense, and corrections — five institutions with conflicting incentives. The courthouse is the center of gravity. The jail is the story nobody else is covering. Understand who appoints the police chief (mayor or city manager), who elects or appoints the district attorney, and who controls the jail (county sheriff, usually elected). Each of these governance structures creates different accountability dynamics.
• Source map: court clerk, prosecutors' PIO, public defender's office, bail bondsmen, victim advocates, defense attorneys in private practice, probation and parole officers. Defense attorneys who work the courthouse daily are the single best source on the criminal justice beat — they see the system from the inside, and many will talk on background. Retired judges are another underused source — they understand sentencing patterns and court culture and are no longer constrained by judicial ethics rules on press contact.
• Key documents: court dockets and case filings, jail population reports, use-of-force logs, officer disciplinary records (where public records law allows), sentencing data by charge and demographic, grand jury presentments, inspector general or oversight board reports, police department annual reports, jail inspection reports (state and federal).
• Calendar: grand jury terms, judicial election cycles, police oversight board meetings, jail inspection schedules, major trial dates, police academy graduation dates (new officer cohorts), union contract negotiations for police and corrections officers.
• Story starter: pull sentencing data for the same charge across different judges. Sentencing disparities between judges for identical charges in the same jurisdiction are common and rarely reported.

Healthcare beat

• Institutional landscape includes hospitals (nonprofit and for-profit), insurance companies, public health agencies, medical schools, and professional associations. Revenue flows are complex — follow the money from insurer to provider to patient. Nonprofit hospitals receive tax exemptions in exchange for community benefit spending; whether that spending matches the tax break is a story in every market.
• Source map: hospital PIOs, county health department director, state medical board staff, patient advocacy organizations, malpractice attorneys, nursing union leaders, hospital chaplains (often aware of systemic problems nobody else will discuss), EMS paramedics (they see the system's failures at the point of contact — ambulance diversion, ER wait times, patient dumping).
• Key documents: hospital financial disclosures (nonprofit 990 forms show executive compensation and community benefit spending; for-profit SEC filings show profit margins), state health department inspection reports, CMS quality scores (Hospital Compare), certificate-of-need applications, malpractice settlement records, community health needs assessments (required every three years for nonprofit hospitals).
• Calendar: flu season and annual public health campaigns, open enrollment periods, state legislative session (healthcare bills), hospital board meetings, accreditation site visits (Joint Commission), community health needs assessment publication cycle (every three years).
• Story starter: compare a nonprofit hospital's tax exemption value to its community benefit spending. The IRS Form 990 Schedule H reports both. In many markets, the tax break exceeds the charity care.

Environment and energy beat

• Institutional landscape spans regulatory agencies (EPA, state DEQ), energy companies, environmental advocacy groups, and affected communities. Permit applications and enforcement actions are the document backbone. The revolving door between industry and regulatory agencies is a structural feature of this beat — former regulators now working for the companies they once regulated, and vice versa.
• Source map: state environmental agency PIOs and inspectors, industry lobbyists, environmental attorneys (both plaintiff-side and defense), community groups near industrial sites, academic researchers in environmental science and public health, retired EPA or state agency staff (who understand the enforcement process and are no longer constrained by agency communication policies).
• Key documents: air and water quality monitoring data (EPA databases), permit applications and renewals, enforcement actions and consent decrees, environmental impact statements, Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data, state energy commission filings, utility rate cases, Superfund site status reports, brownfield redevelopment records.
• Calendar: permit renewal cycles, utility rate case hearings, EPA rulemaking comment periods, state environmental commission meetings, legislative session, Superfund site five-year review cycles.
• Story starter: map every facility in your coverage area that reports to the Toxic Release Inventory. Plot them against census tract demographics. The correlation between pollution exposure and income is a story in nearly every geography.

Business and economy beat

• Institutional landscape includes local employers, chambers of commerce, economic development agencies, workforce boards, and state regulators. The beat is often defined by what the largest employers do — hiring, layoffs, expansions, closures. But the more original stories come from small and mid-size businesses, where closures and expansions affect neighborhoods directly and where data is harder to come by.
• Source map: chamber of commerce staff, economic development agency directors, commercial real estate brokers (who know what companies are leasing, expanding, or shrinking before announcements), workforce development board staff, state labor department economist, bankruptcy attorneys, small business development center (SBDC) counselors, restaurant and retail association directors.
• Key documents: commercial real estate reports (from major brokerages — typically published quarterly), state employment data (Bureau of Labor Statistics), SEC filings for publicly traded local companies, bankruptcy filings, small business loan data (SBA), tax increment financing (TIF) district reports, incentive agreements between government and companies, state unemployment insurance data, wage and hour complaint records.
• Calendar: monthly jobs reports (BLS), quarterly earnings calls for local public companies, annual chamber of commerce economic forecasts, budget hearings for economic development incentives, state unemployment trust fund reports (quarterly).
• Story starter: pull every economic incentive deal the city or state has signed in the past five years. Compare the job-creation promises in each deal to the actual employment at each company today. The gap is a common story, and the data is public.

Housing and real estate beat

• Institutional landscape includes housing authorities, zoning boards, planning commissions, developers, real estate associations, tenant advocacy groups, and state housing finance agencies. Affordable housing policy is where government, private capital, and community need collide — and where the most consequential local decisions are made.
• Source map: planning commission staff, housing authority directors, tenant organizers, landlord association representatives, affordable housing developers (separate from market-rate developers — different incentive structures), housing court judges, fair housing attorneys, homeless services providers.
• Key documents: zoning maps and proposed changes, affordable housing inventory reports, housing authority waiting lists (aggregate data), eviction filings (court records), building code violation records, housing trust fund annual reports, HUD inspection scores for public housing, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) allocations.
• Calendar: planning commission meetings (monthly), housing authority board meetings, zoning amendment hearings, HUD inspection cycles, LIHTC application deadlines, point-in-time homeless count (annual, typically late January).
• Story starter: pull eviction filing data for the past three years. Map the filings by address to identify which landlords file the most evictions. The top filers are often a small number of property owners — and that concentration is a story about power, housing stability, and court resources.

Immigration and demographics beat

• Institutional landscape varies by geography: federal immigration courts and enforcement agencies (ICE, CBP, USCIS), state and local law enforcement, school districts (which serve undocumented students under federal law), hospitals (which provide emergency care regardless of status), and community-based organizations that provide legal aid, language services, and resettlement support.
• Source map: immigration attorneys (both private practice and nonprofit legal aid), community-based organization directors, school district ESL coordinators, hospital interpreters and patient navigators, local law enforcement PIOs (for policy on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement), faith leaders in immigrant communities, refugee resettlement agency staff.
• Key documents: immigration court case volumes and backlog data (TRAC at Syracuse University publishes this), school district enrollment data by home language, hospital uncompensated care reports, city or county policies on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement (sanctuary policies or otherwise), refugee resettlement data by nationality and destination city.
• Calendar: immigration court terms, USCIS fee schedule changes, federal immigration enforcement priority memos (released irregularly), school enrollment periods (immigrant enrollment spikes are visible), annual refugee admissions ceiling announcements.
• Story starter: pull the immigration court backlog data from TRAC for your local court. Calculate the average wait time from filing to hearing. That wait time — measured in years — is the lived experience of every case on the docket.

First Records Requests by Beat Type

Regardless of beat, file your first records requests in the first three days. The goal is twofold: collect the documents you need, and signal to the institutions that the beat is staffed by someone who reads records.

Building Your Beat File

The guide produces a reporting infrastructure. That infrastructure needs a home — a beat file you maintain throughout your time on the beat. The assistant's output is the seed; the beat file is the living version.

What the beat file contains:

Contact sheet. Every source you have spoken with: name, role, institution, phone, email, date of first contact, and a one-line note on what they know that matters. Update after every conversation. When you leave the beat, this sheet is the handover your successor needs — the one you did not get.

Document archive. Every public record you have collected, organized by institution and document type. Date-stamp each document. When a new version is released (a new budget, a new enrollment report), keep the old version — comparisons between years produce stories.

Calendar. The recurring calendar from the guide, plus every date you learn about as you report: contract deadlines, bond project milestones, board member term expirations, union contract renewal dates, accreditation visit schedules. A well-maintained beat calendar generates story ideas without effort — you see what is coming before it arrives.

Story pipeline. A running list of story ideas at different stages: seeds (ideas you have not yet reported), developing (ideas with some reporting behind them), and ready (ideas with enough reporting to pitch). Aim to have at least three developing stories at any time. When you finish one enterprise piece, move a seed into the developing column.

Institutional org charts. For each institution on the beat, a simple chart showing who reports to whom. Update when personnel changes happen. Org charts reveal where power concentrates and where it is diffused — both patterns generate stories.

Meeting log. A running summary of every board meeting, oversight committee meeting, and public hearing you attend. Not full minutes — just the decisions, the votes, the contentious moments, and the names of people who spoke. Over months, patterns emerge that are invisible in any single meeting.

Format: Use whatever system you maintain. A shared folder with subfolders by institution works. A spreadsheet for contacts. A calendar app with reminders. The format matters less than the discipline of updating it after every reporting day.

First-Month Pitfalls

Common mistakes reporters make when starting a new beat. The guide is designed to prevent these, but they are worth naming.

Writing before reading. The single most common mistake. You arrive on the beat, an editor points you at a story, and you start calling sources before you have read the budget, the board minutes, or the accreditation report. Every source you call before reading the documents will give you the version of the story they want you to write. Read first. You will ask better questions, and sources will take you more seriously.

Building only official sources. The communications director, the superintendent, the PIO — these are the sources who return your calls fastest because talking to media is their job. They are not your best sources. If your source list after 30 days consists entirely of institutional spokespeople, your coverage will sound like institutional press releases. Build unofficial sources — union reps, parent activists, frontline workers, former employees — from week two onward.

Covering meetings as events instead of processes. A school board meeting is not a story. The decision the board made — and the months of lobbying, budgeting, and politicking that led to it — is the story. Meetings are checkpoints. The coverage lives between meetings, in the documents and conversations that precede and follow them.

Ignoring the documents that arrive. You file records requests in week one. Documents arrive in weeks two and three. If you do not read them immediately, they stack up and lose their value. Block time on your calendar to read records the day they arrive. If a document is large (a full budget, an accreditation self-study), schedule a two-hour block and read it as you would an assignment. Take notes. The stories are in the footnotes, the appendices, and the management letters.

Trying to cover everything simultaneously. You have three institutions on this beat. You cannot develop all three equally in the first month. Pick one to focus on first — usually the one with the most active story (in this example, the school district bond). Build your infrastructure there, publish your first enterprise piece, and then rotate attention to the second institution. Parallel coverage of all three institutions comes after the first 90 days, not in the first 30.

Attending meetings without preparing. Every board meeting has a packet published 48–72 hours before the meeting. If you show up without reading the packet, you will not understand what the board is voting on, you will not know which agenda items matter, and you will not be able to ask intelligent questions of board members afterward. Read the packet. Highlight the items that involve money, personnel, or controversy. Prepare two or three questions for after the meeting.

Waiting too long to file records requests. Public records requests take time — days to weeks, sometimes months. File them on day one. You cannot control how fast the institution responds, but you can control when the clock starts. The requests you file in week one may not produce documents until week three. The requests you delay until week three will not produce documents until week five or later.

Output Format

Seven major sections: Institutional Landscape, Source Map (three tiers), Document Inventory, Recurring Calendar, Key Contacts, Story Seeds, and 30-Day Ramp-Up Plan. Total length: 1,500–2,500 words. Written for a working reporter — practical, specific, no hedging. Tone is that of a senior editor briefing a new hire: direct, experienced, occasionally blunt about what matters and what doesn't. Output ends with a "Next Step" note: the single first action to take on day one, and whether to run research-brief-creator or expert-finder-brief to develop the first story idea further.

Quality Criteria

• Institutional landscape identifies both the formal decision-making structure and at least one informal power dynamic
• Source map includes at least three sources per tier (daily, weekly, occasional) with specific roles and approach strategies
• Document inventory names specific document types with where to find them and how often they are updated
• Calendar includes at least six recurring events with approximate dates or cycles
• Key contacts are described by role, not by name, with what each role controls
• Story seeds are specific enough to pitch — each has a clear question and a reporting starting point
• 30-day plan has week-by-week structure with tasks that build sequentially (reading before calling, calling before writing)
• No source type is described as simply "experts" or "stakeholders" — every source has a specific professional role
• Guide accounts for the specific geography and publication type provided — not a generic template
• Output is free of generic AI-template phrasing — no "delve into," "navigate the complexities of," Latinate filler verbs, restate-the-question intros, summary-of-the-summary closes, or em-dash overuse
• Output includes at least one concrete next action the user can take immediately

Example

Input

Beat: Education. Covers one school district (45 schools, 32,000 students), one community college, and one state university campus. Geography: Mid-size city (population ~250,000) in a politically moderate state. Publication: Daily newspaper, general audience, circulation ~80,000 print and digital combined. Handover: Previous reporter left six weeks ago. No handover notes. Editor says the beat has been "quiet" since — meaning nobody has been covering it. Editor priorities: The school district just passed a $180M bond measure. The community college is losing enrollment. The university's athletics budget is under scrutiny from the state legislature. Newsroom size: 35-person newsroom. You are the only education reporter.

Output

Beat Setup Guide — Education Beat Mid-size city daily newspaper | One school district (45 schools, 32K students) · one community college · one state university campus

Institutional Landscape

Three institutions, three governance structures, three budget processes. They rarely coordinate, but they share students, taxpayers, and political attention.

School district. Governed by an elected board (typically 5–7 members). The superintendent runs daily operations. A $180M bond just passed, which means construction contracts, vendor selection, and project timelines will dominate board agendas for 18–24 months. Watch who sits on the bond oversight committee — state law usually requires one, and its membership reveals whose interests are being represented.

The real power in a school district is split between three groups: the superintendent's cabinet (assistant superintendents for curriculum, finance, and operations), the teachers' union leadership, and the parent organizations at the wealthiest schools. The union contract renewal cycle is the single most predictable source of conflict; find out when the current contract expires.

Community college. Governed by its own elected or appointed board (varies by state). Enrollment decline is a budget crisis — community colleges are funded largely per student. The president answers to the board, but the deans control what programs survive and which get cut. When enrollment drops, the first casualties are adjunct faculty and vocational programs. The second casualties are student services. Stories live in the gap between what the college promises prospective students and what it can still deliver.

State university campus. Governed by a system-wide board of regents or trustees, not a local board. The campus chancellor or president has less autonomy than it appears. Budget decisions often happen at the system level, which means the local campus administration may be implementing cuts they did not choose. The athletics budget scrutiny from the legislature is a story about subsidies: how much general-fund or student-fee money flows to athletics, and whether that number is growing while academic programs are being cut. Public universities are required to report this — find the annual athletics revenue and expense report filed with the NCAA.

The overlap. All three institutions compete for the same local tax base. The school district's $180M bond affects property taxes, which affects how community college and university boosters approach future ballot measures. All three institutions are also pipelines — the school district feeds the community college and university. Enrollment data flowing between them tells a story about whether the pipeline is working.

Source Map

Tier 1 — Daily contacts (call or check in with weekly as routine, more often during active stories)

1. School district communications director. This person controls media access to the superintendent and board members. Build this relationship first. They will not be your best source, but they will be your most frequent point of contact. Approach: introduce yourself in person during the first week. Ask for a 20-minute orientation meeting, not an interview. Bring no notebook. Frame it as your effort to understand the institution before you write about it.

2. School board clerk or secretary. Controls the meeting calendar, agenda packets, and public records. Knows which board members talk to the press and which avoid it. Approach: call to introduce yourself and ask how to get on the agenda-packet distribution list. Ask for back copies of the last six months of board packets. This is a service relationship — treat it accordingly.

3. Teachers' union president or communications chair. The union has institutional memory that outlasts any superintendent. They know where the bodies are buried — which schools have chronic staffing problems, which administrators are controversial, which budget line items are fiction. Approach:

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