Two Minute Tips

Government & Politics

Reporting on the business of campaign literature

The midterms are finally here. Over the past few months, campaigns have handed out countless number of pamphlets and other forms of campaign material to encourage voters.  Campaign literature includes

Tracking political ads online

Political spending has skyrocketed since the Supreme Court allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money in advertisements. The extent of the Court’s decision has seeped through the

Covering election hacking on the business beat

Election hacking has remained in the headlines after a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges of hacking Democrats’ emails and computer networks using spear-phishing attacks and

multi-colored plastic straws

Covering the local impact of plastic straw bans

Environmentalists have long decried the wastefulness of single-use plastic straws, but the issue has recently entered the mainstream as Seattle’s ban on plastic straws and utensils at all food service

3 more local story ideas on the new tax law

Taxes never sleep. While the time to file taxes has passed, and people have either received a refund or paid the government, the effects of the new tax cuts bill

Politics and the vaping industry

We explored the health risks of vaping and its increasing use among middle- and high-school age students in a post in late April. Since then, the story has taken a

Covering election costs

With the close presidential election in 2016 and races in divided national and state legislatures, special elections have garnered extra attention over the last year. Recently, a special election in

How to stop astroturfing by special interests

One of the covert ways that companies and PR firms affect coverage and influence the public is through astroturfing. Astroturf, as you probably know, is a type of artificial grass

3 stories to report now on the new tax cuts

Many taxpayers saw an immediate increase in their paychecks after H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill, became law on January 1, 2018. But they may not be paying attention

Investigating company claims after the tax cut

Immediately after the tax cut passed in December, companies like Walmart, AT&T, Boeing, Comcast, and Wells Fargo began announcing how they would invest in employees and facilities. Many of these

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