Reply

The Truth About Red and Blue

Posted on by

Royer Roundtable
The Truth about Red and Blue

This is the 40th year of the American news media practice of defining our political choices by the colors red or blue. The next Royer Roundtable will explore some of the implications of this concept. What are the long term effects of one color dominating a state’s politics? What are the problems rising out of the rural/urban red/blue split we see in so many states, particularly in our Northwest? How do states move from one color to another and how long does it take? What do blues have to do to survive in a red place, and vice versa?

Our hope is to examine the continued political deadlock our political system seems to have created and perhaps articulate ways of getting beyond it.

We are bringing together Red and Blue experience from across the region for this discussion.

When: Wednesday, June 19 – 4:30 PM Registration and Networking; 5 PM Program

Where: Union Square Boardroom, 600 University Street, First Level, Seattle

RSVP Required: Anna Boone at annab@gallatinpa.com or 206-696-7970

Light appetizers and drinks will be served. Space is limited so reserve your seat today.

Michelle Cole has long been a political analyst in blue Oregon for the Oregonian and has also, at the beginning of her career, covered the bright red Idaho legislature. She recently joined Gallatin as the Director of Content and Research based in our Portland office.

Greg Strimple is one of the country’s most experienced pollsters and ran the McCain for President polling program in 2008. He has since moved to Idaho and started a polling business in Boise, GS Strategy Group, where he finds a more balanced life for his family and children.

Randy Pepple was the campaign director for the McKenna for Governor campaign and can tell us in gory detail how hard it is to claim Washington state for a Republican candidate. He was chief of staff for First District Congressman Ric White and the only one of our panelists who was a professional sports writer.

Kelly Evans is a founding partner at Sound View Strategies, a political consulting and public affairs firm. She directed the 2008 re-election campaign for Governor Christine Gregoire, has worked on dozens of ballot measures and worked as a Vice President at APCO Worldwide.

Bob Royer is Of Counsel at Gallatin Public Affairs and was a partner in the company for four years. He lives in Belltown and is an active member of the downtown community. Bob served as Deputy Mayor of Seattle for the first five years of his brother Charles Royer’s three terms as mayor. He also writes the blog “The Cascadia Courier: Applying History to Present Day Events and Ideas.” You can read more about Bob here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a reply
Reply

Excellence in journalism

Posted on by

Last weekend, The Oregonian captured nine first-place awards in the 2012 Society of Professional Journalists Northwest Excellence in Journalism competition, including first place for government and politics reporting by Michelle Cole, formerly the Capitol bureau chief at The Oregonian and Gallatin’s director of Content & Research.

We want to say congratulations to both the Oregonian and to Michelle.

We’re in a new era of communication that presents both opportunities and challenges. The opportunity is to tell your own story, on your own terms and on your own timeline. But the challenge is the need to create and maintain your own high-quality content and deliver it through your own communications platform. We can help.

When you need timely, targeted content to be delivered through traditional and emerging channels, Michelle can research it, write it and deliver it. Click here to learn more.

We’re proud to have her on our team.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a reply
Reply

New hat, same head

Posted on by

Written by Michelle Cole

During one of the many sobering meetings I attended at The Oregonian about the newspaper’s finances, a colleague leaned over and whispered in my ear: “They’re going to get us down to around 200.”

I didn’t believe him. We had more than 300 in newsroom staff at the time. I had no idea how fast the numbers would shrink or that my whispering colleague and I would join the trend.

We’re not alone. The nation’s newspapers dropped below 40,000 full-time newsroom staff in 2012, a stunning decline from a peak of 56,900 in 1989 and the lowest number of professional journalists since 1978, according to the report, “State of the Media 2013,” recently released by The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

To read the rest of Michelle’s piece, click here: http://www.gallatinpublicaffairs.com/insighter/michelle-cole/

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a reply