From Deseret News archives:
Utah senators use blog as communication tool
Ric Cantrell, assistant to majority leadership for Republicans, said he believes it is the first legislative body in the nation blogging as a group.
"Blogging seemed to be a rising wave and we thought we could start one and surf that wave into the future," Cantrell said.
Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said Cantrell came up with the concept, senators got together and then made the decision to go ahead with it.
"The seed was planted by Ric and there were joint ideas from leadership," Valentine said. "Ric was the primary architect."
As the architect, Cantrell said he wanted a site that shows what the Senate is about as a way to educate the public. "I didn't want to have some Mickey Mouse site; I wanted a site that reflected the dignity of the Senate," Cantrell said. "The site was built to be inclusive and more as a tool for people interested in the Senate and the legislative process, and not as a part partisan hammer," Cantrell said.
The hope is residents can become more familiar with one aspect of Utah government. "Senators are actively and anxiously involved in making sure the public has the tools they need to run the government that ultimately they're responsible for," Cantrell said.
He said they've had several thousand hits so far and one-third of those people visiting the Web site are bookmarking it as their favorite.
Cantrell said the site is designed for everyone in the Senate to post something.
"Every senator is invited to submit a blog about meetings they went to, speaking engagements and providing additional information to the media," Cantrell said.
Valentine said he is excited at how well the site has been received and has encouraged all members of the Senate to post information.
"I see the site continuing to expand, especially as senators get more comfortable with it," Valentine said. "Expanding is a way that gets issues out."
Senators agree with Valentine.
"I think the site will grow to the point where people will start e-mailing us back on the issues that have been posted," said Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan.
But the blog sites take a lot of work. "They are so labor intensive that if one person were running a blog site, they'd have to post stuff every couple of days," Cantrell said. "With having all the senators involved, they post things every couple of months." Hillyard said before the blog site, his use of the computer was limited. Cantrell said the hope is that the House of Representatives will soon be blogging as well.
Cantrell said senators started working on a blog site in August. It debuted a month later.
E-mail: tdemasters@desnews.com
