Congressional Quarterly
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Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is a privately owned publishing company that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ is a wholly owned affiliate of the Times Publishing Co. of St. Petersburg, Florida. The controlling stock of the TPC is owned by the The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit school for journalists, also located in St. Petersburg.
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[edit] About
CQ was founded in 1945 by Nelson Poynter and his wife, Henrietta Poynter, with the aim of providing a link between local newspapers and the complex politics within Washington D.C. CQ has the largest news team covering Capitol Hill, with more than 100 reporters, editors and researchers. CQ's readership includes 95 percent of the members of Congress, academic and media outlets, as well as members of business and nonprofit organizations, government affairs and the executive branch.
In 1965, Poynter summed up his reasons for founding CQ, saying "The federal government will never set up an adequate agency to check on itself, and a foundation is too timid for that. So it had to be a private enterprise beholden to its clients."
Despite its name, CQ was published quarterly for only one year. Demand drove more frequent updates, first weekly, then daily. CQ was also an early leader in delivering information on a real-time basis, starting with a dial-up service in 1984. Its Web site dominates the market for online legislative tracking information, and has been nominated for several awards. In recent years, CQ has launched several electronic-only newsletters with greater focus on particular areas, including CQ Homeland Security, CQ Budget Tracker, CQ HealthBeat, and CQ Green Sheets.
In 2005, CQ's flagship publication, the Weekly Report, was re-launched as CQ Weekly with a wider focus, including "government, commerce and politics." A daily publication, CQ Today, is also available every day when Congress is in session. CQ is owned by the Times Publishing Company of St. Petersburg, Fla., publisher of the St. Petersburg Times and other publications. The Times Publishing Company is in turn owned by the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists founded by Nelson Poynter.
[edit] Affiliates
CQ Press produces library reference books, college textbooks, professional directories, and Web products on American politics, federal and state government, American institutions, campaigns and elections, current events, and world affairs. CQ Press publishes The CQ Researcher, a weekly non-partisan journal that provides in-depth coverage on critical issues of current affairs. The Researcher, which dates back to 1923 (originally under the name Editorial Research Reports), is the winner of the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism.
CQ Press acquired Morgan Quitno Press, publisher of the controversial Most Dangerous Cities list. The publisher of the list has been criticized for a methodology that does not consider urban and suburban areas consistently. St. Louis, for instance, falls from number 2 to number 120 when suburban area crime statistics are included for all cities in the ranking.
Governing is a monthly publication whose primary audience is state and local government officials, but also includes journalists, academics, companies that provide products and services for government, and involved citizens. The magazine has a circulation of about 85,000.
CampaignNetwork.org is a collaborative project with C-SPAN covering election reporting announced on August 31, 2006.[1]
CQ prints a number of election guides. The Guide to U.S. Elections, in print for 30 years with occasional updates, is based primarily on data collected for the ICPSR. Portions of the Guide have been separately printed, such as the information on presidential elections as Presidential Elections Since 1789 and National Party Conventions. CQ's publications ignore research by psephologists such as Michael Dubin and Phil Lampi, and much of the election information in its publications has been surpassed in quality for several years.[who?]
[edit] See also
- America's Safest and Most Dangerous Cities, a list issued annually by CQ
[edit] References
- ^ "CQPolitics.com, C-SPAN Team Up to Launch CampaignNetwork.org", CQPolitics.com, August 31, 2006.
[edit] External links
- CQ website.
- CQ Homeland Security website.
- CQPolitics.com
- CQ Press website.
- CampaignNetwork.org - Joint project site with C-SPAN.
