Olympia coverage is a little extra

A story that starts on page 2 this week comes through The Star’s association with the state association that works with colleges in the state to encourage and support journalism education.

“Governor, DNR 2016 budget proposals seek wildfire fighting, recovery funds” was written by a student through a special arrangement between The Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation and the University of Washington’s journalism education program.

You’ll likely see more coverage from the state’s capital again this winter as The Star uses stories written by students.

The foundation has for several years worked with the UW to help fund a program that trains outstanding journalism students by arranging for them to fill a coverage void at the state capital.

As is the case with many other states, coverage of this state’s capital by news organizations has grown anemic in terms of the number of news outlets involved. This is bad for the state, as stories that should be covered may be left untouched or under reported. And the big metro dailies often pay too little attention to the stories that smaller towns may care about most.

That’s where The WNPA Foundation comes in. Supported by about a hundred or more “community newspapers” like this one, the organization saw two needs and an opportunity. The capital coverage program at UW was the result.

This week’s story deals with proposals to do a better job of funding the fighting of wildland fires, a subject that directly impacted this community last summer.

We hope you enjoy the coverage that is normally out of reach for a small weekly paper, but we’re interested to know what you think, either way.

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher